Architecture of an M2M system is divided into an M2M application layer, an M2M service capability layer, a communication network layer, an M2M terminal and perception extension layer, and a management supporting system.
According to capabilities of M2M terminal devices, the M2M terminal and perception extension layer divides the M2M terminal devices into two categories: one is an M2M terminal having a capability of communicating with an M2M communication network, which can directly access to an M2M service platform through the communication network, interact with the platform to implement registration, authentication and authorization of the terminal, provide perceptual information desired by an application, perform service interaction with the application through the M2M service platform, and receive management information for terminal peripherals; and the other is an M2M gateway having a capability of communicating with a M2M communication network and an M2M stub network, which can, besides accessing the M2M stub network and a perception device into a network, receive management information for nodes of the M2M stub network and perform protocol conversion between the M2M stub network and the M2M communication network. The terminal peripherals are terminals such as sensors for performing environment perception and data collection, they have limited resources such as processing capabilities, storage capabilities and power supplies, thus can only perform short-distance communications; such an individual terminal is referred to as a terminal peripheral, and a network consisting of multiple nodes of such terminals is referred to as an M2M stub network.
The M2M stub network consists of nodes having capabilities of information collection, simple processing and communication, such as sensors, and the M2M stub network is adapted to collaboratively sense and collect relevant information of a monitored object within a network coverage, and transmit monitored data to an M2M gateway which in turn will transmit, through a communication network, the sensed data to an M2M service platform or application for processing and analysis.
The terminal peripherals refer to individual devices having an environment perception functionality, such as sensors, and the terminal peripherals can transmit, through an M2M gateway or M2M terminal, sensed information to an M2M service platform, and can also receive downlink information regarding management of the terminal peripheral per se from an M2M application or M2M service platform.
The problem of the prior art lies in that: due to their limited processing capability, storage capability and power supply, an M2M stub network and a terminal peripheral cannot directly communicate with a communication network, and they can access the communication network through an M2M gateway; an existing M2M gateway can perform protocol conversion between an M2M network and an upper layer network, can converge and forward data information collected by the M2M stub network and the terminal peripheral, and can also receive control information from functional modules of an M2M service platform or the M2M gateway per se and manage the M2M stub network and the terminal peripheral. However, an existing management functionality implemented based on an M2M gateway is not perfect, thus it cannot perform efficient management of data of the terminal peripheral, and cannot provide effective support to functionalities of a network (M2M application or M2M service platform) or the M2M gateway per se. There is an urgent need for refining and perfecting managerial functions of the M2M gateway so as to perform efficient management of data of the terminal peripheral.